Jul 13, 2023|
JD.com Introduces ChatRhino: Empowering Industry Innovations with an Advanced Large Language Model
by Yuchuan Wang and Vivian Yang
JD.com today unveiled its ChatRhino (Yanxi in Chinese) large language model (LLM) on its 2023 JDDiscovery tech summit, tailored to serve various industries. By combining 70% generalized data with 30% native intelligent supply chain data, JD’s latest AI model offers targeted solutions for real industry challenges across sectors such as retail, logistics, finance, health, and city. Building upon the success of the billion-parameter model K-PLUG launched in 2021 and the 10-billion-parameter model Vega introduced in 2022, JD’s ChatRhino sets a new benchmark as a 100-billion-parameter model.
JD.com has also established a comprehensive LLM tool chain. This includes the MaaS platform “ChatRhino AI Developing and Computing Platform”, the vector database “Vearch,” the upgraded hybrid multicloud OS “Cloud Ship,” the high-performance storage platform “Cloud Ocean,” and the hardware and software integrated virtualization engine “Jing Gang.” In addition to the powerful ChatRhino LLM, JD.com also announced the upgrade of the Youjia DaaS platform and ChatRhino Intelligent Service platform.
“JD’s large model evolution aligns with our relentless pursuit of technology, encompassing the pillars of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, user experience, trustworthiness, inclusiveness, and groundbreaking progress. Our pursuit of cost, efficiency, and experience are deeply ingrained in JD’s business philosophy, serving as the first principles of retail. Moreover, our commitment to trustworthiness, inclusiveness, and breakthrough signifies our dedication to leveraging technology to benefit industries and society as a whole,” said Sandy Xu, CEO of JD.com.
An Industry-Savvy Large Model Trained for Real-World Applications
JD’s extensive industry coverage provides ChatRhino with unparalleled advantages. The model can accumulate tens of billions of high-quality interactive data and know-how derived from JD’s various industry scenarios every year. Additionally, ChatRhino possesses exceptional industry generalization capabilities and ensures secure usage for clients both on-cloud and off-cloud.
Peng Cao, Chair of JD.com’s Technology Committee and President of JD Cloud, said, “The digital intelligent supply chain trains industrial large models, while large models leverage supply chains to go deep into industries.”
To deploy ChatRhino’s applications in real-world business scenarios, Dr. Xiaodong He, Director of JD Explore Academy and President of JD Technology’s Intelligent Services and Products Division, outlined a three-step approach:
- Step 1: By now, JD.com has built a generative large model based on practices within JD.com’s diverse business operations.
- Step 2: Enhance and iterate the model through highly complex industrial scenarios, creating robust services for industry use by end of the year.
- Step 3: Fully open up the capabilities of the model for serious commercial applications in early 2024.
Training Tool Kits for Rapid Model Deployment in Industries
JD’s ChatRhino AI Developing and Computing Platform offers tailored solutions for clients’ large models and industry-specific application development. With over 100 training and inference optimization tools, the platform facilitates the seamless transformation of generative models into specialized ones, eliminating the need for lengthy and resource-intensive procedures.
During the summit, JD showcased examples of rapid model deployment, including converting a generative model into a healthcare industry-specific model. What traditionally required a week and a team of over ten scientists can now be accomplished by just 1 or 2 algorithm engineers within minutes. The platform’s model accelerating and optimizing tools significantly reduce model inference costs by 90%.
JD Health’s Jingyi Qianxun (meaning asking doctors thousands of times) Large Model, based on the ChatRhino, utilizes rapid migration and learning of various medical and health scenarios to automatically deploy products and solutions. This technology serves as a robust foundation for telemedicine services.
Another notable demonstration showcased an AI marketing operation platform within the financial sector. Through simple conversations, users can effortlessly create comprehensive marketing campaigns, including operational strategies, personnel arrangement, quick campaign pages setup, bulk generation of marketing copy and materials, as well as digital delivery. Previously, achieving these results required coordination among several different teams, spanning product, R&D, algorithms, design, and analysts. However, now a single person can accomplish these tasks. Moreover, this solution significantly reduces human-computer interactions from over 2,000 to fewer than 50. This innovative approach has the potential to increase marketing production efficiency by a hundredfold.
In the e-commerce domain, the JD Cloud AIGC content marketing platform can now swiftly produce a diverse range of essential e-commerce visuals, captivating marketing posters, and detailed product images using just one product image. These assets cater to the demands of rapid store setup, product promotion, and other marketing requirements. With this advancement, the production cost of each visual set has been reduced by 90%, while the time required has been slashed from seven days to half a day.
If the ChatRhino AI developing and computing platform is the training center for JD’s LLM, the Vearch vector database is the bridge for the AI model to utilize data. Vearch can now support high-performance retrieval from tens of billions of data sources, with latency reduced to milliseconds and availability reaching 99.99%. It has already served over 100 large and medium-sized enterprise users. JD.com has used the vector database for large-scale pre-training of models, reducing inference costs by 80%.
JD.com has also made significant investments in cloud computing infrastructure to support its LLMs. In 2021, JD established Tianqin α, China’s first large-scale computing cluster based on the SuperPOD architecture, located in Chongqing. Tianqin α achieves a remarkable 6.2 times acceleration in inference speed and a 90% reduction in inference costs. It has become an indispensable pillar of computational support for technological innovation.
Upgraded Multi-Scenario Solutions Drive Industry Innovation
“Intelligentization takes root first in industries that are at the forefront of digitalization,” said Liqiang Gao, Vice President of JD.com and head of JD Technology’s Solution Center. In sectors such as retail, finance, cities, and logistics, JD has introduced innovative intelligent solutions, harnessing the power of large models to enhance service capabilities and drive transformative change.
JD Logistics launched the 3.0 version of Jinghui Intelligent Supply Chain Data Management Platform. With the support of ChatRhino, Jinghui’s performance in sales forecasting, inventory management and replenishment has been greatly improved, while helping users locate supply chain problems and offer solutions quickly through its interactive supply chain control tower.
JD.com CEO Sandy Xu said, “JD’s journey in developing large language models is closely intertwined with our industry partners. JD is committed to forging strong collaborations with industry partners to continually contribute to the high-quality development of industries through technology innovations.”
JD’s commitment of technology centers around instilling reassurance and trust in its industry partners, particularly in the realm of AI represented by large models. This empowers partners to confidently leverage technology, enabling its transcendence beyond the confines of laboratories and corporate boundaries to create value within industrial scenarios.
(yuchuan.wang@jd.com; vivian.yang@jd.com)
Apr 22, 2024|
JD.com Debuts AI Digital Representative of Founder Richard Liu During Livestream, Drawing 20 Million Views in Under One Hour
During a livestream on April 16th, JD.com introduced an AI digital representative of its founder, Richard Liu (Qiangdong Liu), nicknamed “procurement and sales manager Brother Dong (采销东哥).” Liu appeared in both JD Home Appliances and JD Supermarket’s livestreaming rooms, attracting over 20 million views within the first hour and generating RMB 50 million in sales throughout the entire livestream.
The digital representative almost perfectly replicates Liu’s facial expressions, body language, gestures, and voice, capturing even the subtlest movements of his fingers. Behind this technology is JD Cloud’s ChatRhino, an advanced large language model (LLM) that brings the avatar to life.
Behind the Technology
The LLM precisely mirrors Liu’s distinctive expressions and movements, naturally weaving in his occasional finger twiddles while he speaks, accentuating points with hand gestures, and adding nods at just the right moments for emphasis, creating a natural and authentic representation. Perfecting the voice proved to be a greater challenge. Those who have heard Liu speak are well-acquainted with the distinct inflections of his Suqian accent—a characteristic touch from his small-town roots in Jiangsu province. Observers will note the brisk pace of his speech, lighter enunciation, and his tendency to meld words in a seamless flow. His “sh” sounds carry a nasal quality, and he often addresses people as “brothers” to boost morale.
While programming the standard Mandarin dialect is relatively straightforward, teaching the AI to adopt the nuances of the Suqian dialect and Liu’s unique vocal patterns required a precise level of customization from the ChatRhino LLM. For example, the LLM had to provide accurate judgments on when to introduce the nasal tonality or the specific moments to merge words, ensuring the AI’s linguistic output mirrored Liu’s signature speaking style authentically.
Beyond replicating vocal characteristics, the AI’s voice must also be suitable for the casual, dynamic atmosphere of e-commerce livestreaming, such as adopting colloquialisms like “xiong di men” — a phrase comparable to “folks” or “guys” in English — to create a friendly rapport with the audience. JD Cloud’s ChatRhino team fine-tuned the model to focus on sociable nuances. The initial dataset for the LLM consisted predominantly of Liu’s formal speeches—spirited and compelling, yet too ceremonious for the interactive world of livestreaming. To cultivate a more congenial and approachable persona, the team utilized Liu’s recent casual conversations as the primary source material, rich with personal anecdotes and travel tales. This approach shaped the AI’s voice into one that is that is not only natural and approachable but also genuinely engaging for the end user.
As a fully self-developed technology product of JD Cloud, the ChatRhino Digital Representative solution has already served over 4,000 brand merchants, contributing to a 30% increase in order conversion rate during idle hours and helping merchants reduce livestreaming costs, enhance operational efficiency, and optimize user experience. Equipped with 50,000 hours of voice data, this technology enables digital representatives to intelligently adapt to various livestreaming styles dynamically.
The AI is also adept at managing 70% of routine live chat inquiries autonomously without any manual intervention, while also optimizing its responses with a self-improving algorithm. For instance, digital representatives can autonomously fields questions using product details and scripts, and post-livestream, and assimilate new information. Mirroring the acumen of seasoned sales professionals, it boasts a 90% accuracy rate in offering tailored product recommendations when solicited by customers.
The recent introduction of a cutting-edge livestream control console serves as the “brain” for the digital representative solution. It diligently monitors real-time inventory, adjusting the showcased products in the livestream and tailoring the script to ensure relevance—sidestepping items that are out of stock and spotlighting those in high demand. It also gauges and fine-tunes the frequency and style of interactions based on live audience engagement. With this advanced platform, businesses managing multiple livestreams can effortlessly operate thousands of sessions concurrently via cloud services, bypassing the need for intricate local setups. This innovation yields a substantial cost reduction of 30%.
Human-Machine Synergy
The intention behind digital avatars is not to outshine or compete with human talent but to harness the potential of technology to work in concert with livestreamers, maximizing overall growth. Essentially, the digital representative solution serves as a tool for brands and merchants to leverage long-tail traffic once real livestreamers conclude their broadcasts. JD’s analytics indicate this strategy can boost order conversion rates by 30% during off-peak hours, such as late into the night.
Digital representatives also excel in specific product categories that require detailed explanations, such as health products like nursing beds, electric wheelchairs, and oxygen concentrators. The solution can provide constant, round-the-clock guidance, adding substantial value to livestreams when traffic is typically lower.
Last week, JD.com announced an investment of one billion yuan into video content creation. This investment underscores JD’s commitment to leveraging the power of short videos and livestreams to transform the online shopping experience for its users and create new growth avenues for brand merchants.
Apr 20, 2024|
JD.com Unveils Ambitious Plans for 618 Grand Promotion: Aiming to More Than Double High-Performing Merchants
JD.com is gearing up for this year’s 618 Grand Promotion with an ambitious goal: to more than double the number of merchants achieving sales over one million yuan on its platform. At the recent Conference of Merchants and Ecosystem Partners on April 18, JD.com introduced a range of supportive initiatives aimed at achieving this ambitious target.
Sandy Xu, CEO of JD.com, noted at the conference that the company will dedicate significant resources to bolster traffic support, incorporate advanced AI technology, and enhance service capabilities. These efforts are particularly focused on empowering third-party merchants, including small and medium-sized enterprises in its marketplace.
Key initiatives include optimizing the platform’s traffic distribution ecosystem to prioritize highly-rated stores and products and competitively priced products through enhanced search and recommendation mechanisms. Additionally, JD.com will continue to offer merchants free access to high-traffic channels, which include significant incentives such as the popular 10-billion-yuan discount and free shipping programs.
To engage more content creators, JD.com recently announced that it will allocate over one billion yuan in cash incentives and traffic resources. This investment aims to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem that supports merchants’ traffic, business growth, and innovation.
At the core of JD.com’s strategy is technological innovation, which involves integrating AI-driven solutions into merchant operations. This includes the deployment of JD’s proprietary large language model, ChatRhino, and an AI-empowered merchant operation platform that offers are variety of free AI applications, and more. These technologies streamline various operations scenarios, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs for merchants.
For instance, On April 16th, JD.com unveiled an AI digital avatar of its founder, Richard Liu, as a sales host on its livestreaming platform. This event attracted 20 million viewers in just one hour and generated sales exceeding RMB 50 million ($6.9 million). This AI-driven virtual host technology, developed by JD Technology, is now supporting over 4,000 brands on the platform. Additionally, merchants such as a sashimi knife seller can utilize JD.com’s AIGC content generation tool to quickly produce high-quality demonstration images, bypassing traditional costs associated with product photography.
JD.com also continues to enhance its service capabilities, particularly for small and medium-sized merchants. This includes personalized business guidance, comprehensive training programs, and upgraded after-sales services, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for customers.
As of March 2024, JD.com has seen a significant increase in active third-party merchants on its platform, surpassing one million. This growth is a testament to the platform’s effectiveness and its appeal to both new and established merchants.
JD.com Partners with Leading Home Brands to Launch Green Trade-in Alliance
